With the moon out in full all night long, my only realistic targets were clusters. I imaged a pair of clusters at the end of the night, and, little did I know, it went behind a big tree half way through. Guiding was also being weird half of the time,… Continue Reading... "“Possible Binary Cluster,” NGC 6755 and 6756"
Even though the moon was out and quite bright, I decided to image. There weren’t many good targets to choose from, so I chose a triplet of galaxies, including NGC 5981, 5982, and 5985. These galaxies are a decent ways away, at between 140 and 200 million light years. Things… Continue Reading... "Draco Trio"
For the first test of my new ZWO ASI2600MC camera, I needed a somewhat easy target. With all of the famous galaxies done already for the year, I picked M100, the “Blowdryer galaxy.” Not too dim or large, it turned out really well. The colored rings problem I had been… Continue Reading... "M100, the Blowdryer galaxy"
I needed to waste a couple hours before the sun came up and after my last target went over the trees, so I picked the open cluster NGC 6819. 40 exposures of four minutes each led to a rich star field. Continue Reading... "The Foxhead, an open cluster"
With just a little time left in the night, I decided to try the globular cluster M56. Not bad for only barely two hours of data! Continue Reading... "M56, a hell of a star field"
Finally, a clear night after over two weeks of clouds! Continuing with galaxy season, I was able to fit two neighbors into one frame, the Whale and the Crowbar galaxies. Guiding was kind of having a fit since there weren’t any good, bright stars in view, but it all averaged… Continue Reading... "The Whale and Crowbar galaxies"
With a name like that, I couldn’t pass up capturing M13. It was a little low in the sky at first, but since it’s so bright, the background wasn’t a problem. I took almost 5 hours of 130 second exposures on it. Continue Reading... "The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules"
Over two nights, I was able to get over eight and a half hours of data on the Croc’s Eye Galaxy. The data turned out great, even with a bright moon out. I tried using my studio softbox to take flats, and it worked a little better this time, but… Continue Reading... "M94, Croc’s Eye Galaxy"
I decided to try the Sunflower galaxy again, since it was one of the first deep sky objects I imaged with my Dobsonian and homemade tracking platform. Clouds held out a lot longer than were forecast, and the equipment kept giving me frustrations. The moon was also out most of… Continue Reading... "M63, the Sunflower"
I got a ZWO ASI 178MM to use as a new guide camera. My old Touptek camera loved to disconnect in the middle of the night, so I just couldn’t trust it anymore. The ZWO camera has much higher resolution and also a larger field of view, in addition to… Continue Reading... "M106"
